Crushed seashells, not limestone: ancient Nubia's temple workshop rewrites its own story

At Sanam, in modern Sudan, stood a temple complex in Napata, the ancient capital of Kush, built under King Taharqo in the seventh century BC. Archaeologists led by Rennan Lemos, of Durham University, and Kathryn Howley, of New York University, have now excavated its faience workshop — the glossy blue-green ceramic Egypt made famous — and found hundreds of beads and a figurine made for the royal cemetery at Nuri. The surprise is in the recipe: where limestone was scarce, Kushite crafters used crushed seashells for lime instead. Published in the journal Antiquity, the work shows a kingdom adapting a neighbour's technology on its own terms and controlling the making of prestige objects itself — ingenuity, not imitation.